from Song of Myself

1

I CELEBRATE myself;
And what I assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms
are full of perfumes—
the shelves are crowded
with perfumes;
I breathe the fragrance myself,
and know it and like it;
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume—
it has no taste of the distillation—
it is odorless;
It is for my mouth forever—
I am in love with it;
I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;
I am mad for it to be
in contact with me.

2

The smoke of my own breath;
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine;
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs;
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn;
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice,
words loos’d to the eddies
of the wind;
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms;
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag;
The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides; The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
have you reckon’d
the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long
to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud
to get at the meaning
of poems?

Stop this day
and night with me,
and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—

(there are millions of suns left;)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books;
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me;
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.

3

I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk
of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception
than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age
than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection
than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
always a breed of life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure,
plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Walt Whitman

let evening come

'Twas such a little -- little boat
That toddled down the bay!
'Twas such a gallant -- gallant sea
That beckoned it away!

'Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast --
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!

© 2008 Emily Dickinson

Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?

So Sailors say -- on yester- day --
Just as the dusk was brown
One little boat gave up its strife
And gurgled down and down.

So angels say -- on yesterday --
Just as the dawn was red
One little boat -- o'erspent with gales --
Retrimmed its masts -- redecked its sails --
And shot -- exultant on!

© 2008 Emily Dickinson




Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

© 2008 Jane Kenyon